Radomir Putnik

Radomir Putnik (24 January 1847-17 May 1917) was a Field Marshal and Chief of the General Staff of Serbia during the Balkan Wars and World War I.

Biography
Putnik was born in Kragujevac in the Ottoman Empire's Province of Serbia, and from 1876 to 1877 he fought in the Serbo-Ottoman War. In 1886-1895 he was a professor in the Military Academy, and in 1889 he became Deputy Chief of the General Staff. In the First Balkan War of 1911 he defeated the Ottomans in the Battle of Kumanovo and the Battle of Monastir and in 1913 he defeated the Bulgarians in the Second Balkan War in the Battle of Bregalnica. He was in Budapest when Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia in 1914, starting World War I, but the gentlemanly Franz Joseph I of Austria let Putnik return to his country. In the Battle of Cer and the Battle of Kolubara in late 1914, he defeated the Austrians twice and proved his worth as a talented veteran general. But in 1915, he could not avoid the defeat of Serbia and he traveled to Nice in France. A heavy smoker, he died of lung emphysema without seeing his homeland again.